Teaching engineering design research

CloseDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark

Abstract:

The importance og engineering design as an industrial activity, and the increasingly complex and dynamic context in which it takes place, has led to the wish to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of engineering design in practice as well as in education. Although attempts have been made to improve design for centuries, it was not until well in the second half of the 20th century that engineering design became a research topic (see pahl and Beitz (1996), Heymann (2004) for historical overviews). Engineering research, such as research into thermodynamics, mechanics and materials, has a much longer tradition, as can be seen from the establishment of many technical universities in the second half of the 19th century. However, despite 30 years of design research, the feld is not a well-established scientific discipline. Furthermore, the effects on industrial practice and education are far less than expected . According to Suh (1998) "the most significant changes in design practice will occur when the field is fully endowed with a firm science base." Today, due to the organisation of our universitites and the paht to a university position, a substantial part of all research efforts is created by PhD students. This has created the demand for a clear, efficient way of learning the crafmanship of doing design research, a demand which is in strong contrast to the state of design research in general. This article reflects the authors' efforts in running a summer school om engineering design research to support young PhD students.